The interview
by nerdgirlsofwitchwood
Summary: An 18 year old Morse goes to Oxford for his interview, but things don't quite go to plan. And of course, it wouldn't be Morse without a body thrown in, a trip to the pub, and intellectual snobbery.
1. Chapter 1

"Endeavour Morse."

The voice rang out in the dusty stone corridor, and Endeavour's head darted up from its occupation of studying the cracks in the marble floor. Fumbling with his notes and pencils he extricated his gangly legs from where they had been tucked (or rather tangled) around the chair legs. He followed the sound of the voice towards the only open door on the corridor, a huge wooden affair the size of a barn door, but infinitely more intricately carved. _Concentrate, Morse._ Endeavour walked into the room.

It was huge, the size of a ballroom, and decorated like one, apart from the rows and rows of examination tables filling it. Near the back of the room, three such tables were pushed together to create a t shape. A man and a woman sat at two desks side by side; the stem of the T was reserved for Endeavour. He sat down in silence, noticing the woman's cheap plastic watch at odds with her finely tailored suit, the man's cut lip, presumably chapped from the December cold but more similar to the split lips from punches that Endeavour regularly saw at school. What sort of people were these Oxford academics? Certainly nothing like the worn out teachers at his school, wringing their hands at the lack of interest the boys had for anything other than rugby.

The man was speaking. _Concentrate, Morse._

"… what you thought the poem was about, Morse?"

"Sorry? Oh, um, yes, well-" Endeavour checked his notes, hands shaking. _Come on, Morse, you know poetry-_ "I thought it was interestingly egotistical of you to pick a poem so clearly extolling the wonders of an Oxford education. In the first stanza the author decries his lack of an education in his home town, but by the end of the poem his university days seem to have brought him peace. Rather good publicity for you, I thought." _Damn. I wasn't meant to be truthful today._

"Yes, well, the egotism of Oxford scholars aside-" here the man glared at Endeavour while his colleague smiled faintly- "shall we continue?"

17 minutes later, Endeavour stood and left the room.

Endeavour stared moodily at the ground as he slouched back along St Giles and crossed the road to St John's. The December wind bit at his face, turning the finely cut cheekbones red and tugging the messy curls into a golden halo. His stomach growled underneath his navy duffel coat: he hadn't been able to eat any of the college breakfast that morning, through nerves over the interview. _Not that those nerves were any use, the way I messed that one up._ Endeavour ducked through the college gates and hurried up to his bedroom, where he threw himself on the bed.

He hadn't thought himself capable of tantrums any more, not since his mother died and all emotion seemed to vanish from him overnight. While the house used to shake from the sound of his fists beating on the floor, usually for some minor, but to him inconceivable, annoyance, for the past six years nothing had seemed worth getting upset about. Life was pain, and what was one more pain among the many?

And yet, though he had believed himself now immune to disappointment, numb to anticipation, disinterested in, well, anything, he now found himself sobbing silently on the strange bedclothes, his bony shoulders heaving with grief at the dream destroyed. It had been Oxford or nothing, his father had been adamant- what was the point of forking out funds for three years of study at a second rate university?- and now, after that disastrous interview, it seemed like nothing was going to be his lot.

For the rest of his three days in Oxford, Endeavour actually had nothing to do. For some vague reason the college insisted that everyone on his course stay until Saturday, saying that they might have more interviews. Endeavour wasn't quite sure why they couldn't just plan the interviews in advance so as to get them out of the way in one day, but wasn't complaining: anything to escape the poisonous atmosphere at home. Gwen's bad hip got worse in the winter, and somehow she always managed to attribute this to him.

Endeavour spent the afternoon after his interview (and subsequent silent tantrum) walking around the city. He was eager to escape the metaphorically cold college- no doubt it buzzed during term time, but currently he couldn't stand to spend any time with of the nervous, overly-loud public school boys jamming the common room with their analyses of every clever sounding book under the sun. _I AM a public-school boy._ It still didn't feel true, though.

Endeavour meandered down the broad, turning right and continuing under the bridge of sighs. He found himself in a narrow cobbled lane, with high walls on either side set with lamps. Blackened with age, to endeavour they whispered of a history waiting to be discovered. _By anybody but me._ The lane continued around many corners and Endeavour almost forgot his bitterness, lost in imaginings of the past, when suddenly-

BANG. Pain exploded into Endeavour's brain. He had collided with the pavement. Confused, seeing stars, leaning on the sooty wall, Endeavour stood and turned around. He started shaking violently. There was a body at his feet. He had tripped over a body. It was soaked in blood, its face was unrecognisable, so drenched was it in thick red liquid still oozing from a dent in its skull. Endeavour's vision was becoming fuzzy, he staggered away from the red wet thing and started to run back the way he had come, he screamed help, he ran into the wall and staggered away again, still yelling police, ambulance, murder. He didn't make it to the end of the lane before once again he was face to face with the road, this time unconscious.


	2. Chapter 2- Jim

Chapter 2

"Gently does it there, matey, you're alright, there now, I'm just…"

Someone was stroking Endeavour's hair. It was his mother, and he was in bed, dizzy with the flu. His bed was so cold. And hard. That couldn't be right. Endeavour opened his eyes to blackness. The voices weren't right either. People swam in front of his face. There was a strange man, gently pushing a coat under his head. Not stroking after all. And a policeman.

 _The body._

Endeavour shot up, blacking out in the process. He kept his balance, blinking and breathing until at last vision returned. The strange man, no more than a boy as it turned out, was holding his elbow and staring at him.

"Watch yourself, now, you've fainted and hit your head, don't want to overdo it…"

The boy was talking a lot, Endeavour thought. He wished he would stop, he needed to think, there was something wrong.

"Where did the body go?" he asked, and pain shot pulsed in the back of his skull.

An older man approached, wearing a sharp suit and holding a small notebook. He seemed not to have noticed Endeavour's fainting, or if he had, he was not going to be pandering to him.

"The paramedics have taken the body away, obviously," he began brusquely. "Now, I'd like to ask you a few questions about this discovery of yours, if you don't mind…"

Endeavour felt as if he was being interrogated by enemy forces, the policeman was so thorough (and cold). He accounted for the days movements, described the exact position of the body as he'd found it (nearly fainting again as he recalled the grisly details), explained that there had been no one else nearby and that he'd fainted immediately on seeing it, which was why he had not telephoned the police straight away. Eventually, Detective Constable Bright let him go, and he walked away, head spinning and throbbing still with pain.

The boy ran to catch up with him.

"You forgot your book, matey," he said, handing him a small, well-thumbed copy of Virgil.

"Oh, thank you. It must have fallen out of my pocket when I fainted," Endeavour replied, smiling and regretting it as pain shot through his head again. The boy looked at him for a moment, then seemed to decide something.

"What you need's a pick me up," he said, "We're going to the pub. Come on." He walked a few paces down the road then stopped, turning, to wait for Endeavour.

Endeavour hesitated. His mother had always been so against alcohol of any sort, and his father disgustingly keen. He'd never even had a drink before, despite turning 18 a few months ago. Then again, it had been a spectacularly terrible day. _What have you got to lose?_ Endeavour decided to drown his sorrows. He smiled again, and followed the boy through the ancient city of learning to the nearest pub. Where he got utterly, utterly smashed.

Three hours later, Endeavour was having a fantastic time. Jim, as the boy turned out to be called, was friends with the landlord, and after explaining Endeavour's terrible luck in literally tripping over a dead body, had secured them free drinks for the whole night, as a first round on the house turned into the offer of a drink from everyone at the bar who wanted to hear the story first hand. For the first time in his life, Endeavour's keen eye for detail was making him popular. At school, his pedantic nature meant the other boys rather liked (to use the vernacular) to rip the shit out of him.

He started to rather enjoy describing in gruesome detail the bloody body, the small whitish grey piece of brain hanging out onto the pavement, the way the victim's eyes had rolled completely back into their skull, even the metallic tang on blood on the air, as each new detail earned a cheer from the lads at the bar. Jim hadn't mentioned Endeavour's fainting fit, for which Endeavour was eternally grateful. Instead he joined Endeavour in tearing down the small, shrewish police man with thirty thousand questions. It turned out Jim could do an excellent impression of his thin, reedy voice.

Speaking of Jim, Endeavour rather liked him. When he'd told him his name, "Endeavour Morse" he'd started to call him just "Morse" straight away, saying he didn't hold with stupid names, and Endeavour had rather liked the sound of it. He'd then changed his mind on realising Endeavour was applying to Oxford, and started calling him 'college boy'. Endeavour was worried at first that this would alienate the pub's laddy clientele, but on the contrary they seemed to like the idea that they'd taken an Oxford boy under their wing and brought him over to their side. And Endeavour suspected that with Jim as his ally, he would forever be one of the lads, no matter how large the crest on his school blazer.

At 11pm, the landlord called out "last orders!" and with a wink at Jim, set down two more pints on the bar. Endeavour was reeling. At 9, he'd realised that he'd missed dinner, and, judgement clouded slightly by Wychwood ale, had decided to fill the gap with another pint. This last one would be his eighth. The bell ringing brought him back to his senses. Slightly. 11pm. He should probably head back to college soon…

 _Wait. College. 11pm._

He was missing something here. If only the bar would stop spinning around, then maybe he would be able to think.

 _11pm college curfew. Damn._

Suddenly alert, Endeavour checked his watch. It was two minutes past eleven. The porter had told him with a wink that St John's operated on Oxford time, meaning everything actually happened at five past the hour. He had three minutes to get there, or he was locked out all night.

Endeavour lurched off his bar stool, shouted a general thank you into the pub and sprinted outside.

Endeavour would never quite be able to remember how he got back to college that night, lurching through the streets of Oxford, leaning on walls, tripping over his untied laces and scattering change, buttons, cigarettes, and even Virgil from his pockets as he went. And yet, just as the porter was coming out of his vestibule to lock the gates, Endeavour was arriving. He stared at the porter- _why are there two of them?-_ and threw up at his feet. _Ohhh dear._


End file.
